Travels and Thoughts

Travels and Images

WEEK 3 2007

Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week

Picture of the Week

MAIN PAGE

Lancaster Weather NOAA

Lancaster WeatherUnderground

First Post, 17 March 2002

Four Years Ago, This Week, 2003

Three Years Ago, this week, 2004

Two Years Ago, This Week, 2005

A Year Ago, This Week, 2006

Weekly Picture Archive

Saturday 20 January 2007

Saturday - had lunch at a Korean place - excellent food. I was still full at dinner, but was lured over to my friends for an omelette and cupcakes (and Newcastle beer!). We watched several episodes of Angel, season three. It's nice to see them in order, with a decent amount of continuity within and between episodes, not all broken up. On DVD the indicators for the original commercial breaks (one or two second black screens on the DVD's) are jarring - you start to realize the price they exact in real time. On the other hand, without commercials the show would never have existed.

There was a bit of a scare here today - I touched the USB cable from the back of my PC, there was a spark, and the system crashed. Sheesh. Fortunately it rebooted just fine, but I need to make sure I ground myself if it's like today: a dry winter's day and I'm wearing a wool shirt.

Maybe we'll see Dejah Thoris John Carter on the big screen yet - Disney may make the Barsoom movie.

The end is near for the old clipper ship Carrick. Too bad. According to the article:

"The Scottish Maritime Museum at Irvine had intended to restore the Carrick as a passenger ship and tourist attraction but any overhaul, a feasibility study concluded, would have created little more than a £10m reproduction."

Well, maybe not. When Joshua Slocum rebuilt the old Spray in Sailing Alone Around the World he wrote:

"Now, it is a law in Lloyd's that the Jane repaired all out of the old until she is entirely new is still the Jane. The Spray changed her being so gradually that it was hard to say at what point the old died or the new took birth, and it was no matter."

It seems that Britain is always trashing historical bits of something, but I think it's just a matter of them having so much history and a limited budget to preserve it. China has much the same problem, but is even more indifferent to it - apparently they are bulldozing dozens hundreds of Han and Qing Dynasty tombs to make parking lots for the next Olympics. [both via Cronaca]

I'm a bit of a Global Warming skeptic. So, I'm surfing the web and I run across a blog by a physcist and climate skeptic, Luboš Motl. Anyway, like a lot of bloggers (not me, I don't know how) he sometimes looks at referrals, that is, the search terms that bring people to his page. They are mostly physics and climate related, but check out the seventh -

Friday 19 January 2007

Friday - we cleared the flight envelope, finally. It was a long day - 2 flights - but it's good to be somewhat done. There are still more research flights, but the hard work involved in the flight safety and expansion part is done. Which is good - there is amazing amounts of work to be done elsewhere, though it looks like I may have help soon.

It's warmed up, a bit. The other day it felt cold, snow cold, but it really wasn't as bad as a couple of weeks ago. Then the hummingbird feeder froze almost solid:

I say "almost" because there was a small amount of liquid water visible at the very bottom. I thought perhaps the hummingbird had flown south for the winter, but when I brought the feeder inside to defrost I could hear him complaining bitterly outside. Hummingbirds might be the grumps of the bird family - they always seem to be scolding.

Thursday 18 January 2007

Thursday - Book #4 is Riding the Bullet, by Stephen King. It's really short, more of a short novella or long story, but that's the biz. Some books are long, some are short - heck, I read The Stand so I think it all evens out.. Anyway, it was OK. Lot's of Maine accents. Apparently it was made into a movie at some point.

It's warmed up - 17F this morning. The hump of ice at the subdivision entrance is starting to melt.

I'd mentioned the Discworld before - Monstrous Regiment was Book #47 last year. I recently ran across a Guide to the Discworld books (MR is the second from the right on the bottom). Interesting, though I don't love the series enough to actually seek them out.

Wednesday 17 January 2007

Wednesday - another flight, and then almost a second, but the weather turned ugly. Still, we've accomplished a lot.

The fish were asleep when I got home - I put some food in the tank, but they didn't seem interested. Riley is chowing down though. I need to get to bed, meetings tomorrow...

Someone at work saw the comet, last Thursday, after I told them where to look. Sheesh.

Tuesday 16 January 2007

Tuesday - yeah, busy again. So much for "I'm only going to work 8 hours for now on.".

There was also a 45 minute backup at the base gate. The abuse continues. Somehow I doubt the officers have to wait an hour to go to their quarters in the evening, or wait in line for an hour in the morning to get to their duty stations. Oh well, nothing new here.

We got a flight in, and cleared a bunch of points. So that was good.

Monday 15 January 2007

Monday - I've been completely unsuccessful in my attempts to see the comet. I give up. It's too cold to go out and try to catch a glimpse any more. I read somewhere that it will be visible later this year in the southern hemisphere. But my passport has run out. If I were to sail south, but not land anywhere, would I need it to get back into the country? (And really, how could they keep a citizen out, anyway? I suppose there could be a hefty fine for stepping over the border without one.)

In the news: Amazing Comet Visible in Broad Daylight.

Lies, all lies.

Quote of the Day
Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips." [via Newmark's Door]

Riley threw up the new food. I knew at least one of the cats would. That prognosticative accuracy warms my heart as I carry a tissue full of vomit at arms length, to the commode.

It looked like another really cold night Sunday, so I put cloths around my outside spigots, and hot water bottles next to the sprinkler manifolds (which I'd already covered). Not quite so cold this morning, however, only a measly 8F.

There are reports that the California citrus crop may be in trouble. [via Rand Simberg] But then again, that link is to Sfgate and written by an AP guy, so you have to take it all with a big grain of salt.

Sunday 14 January 2006

Sunday - I should say, the "new" computer is working out well. It was a lot quieter than the old PC to start with, and I've put it down and away, five feet away, and it is nearly inaudible. I can tell it's on by the blue glow from the case fan - it was the cheapest fan, but the glow is a nice perk. The downside to having the box located off the desktop is that (1) CD and DVD manipulation means I have to get up from the chair, and (2) no speakers - the cables aren't long enough. I imagine it's possible to get some sort of extension for them, but I rarely turn them on, so it's not a big deal.

I watched the Bears and the Seahawks game in the morning. It was a fun game, one of the best. Then I watched the Chargers and the Patriots in the afternoon. That was an annoying game - the Chargers' should have won, but made too many stupid mistakes. So it goes. It cost me 50 cents. I gave Dad two points - and New England won outright! Ridiculous. At this rate I won't be able to retire early after all...

Repeatedly during the game there was an annoying commercial stating that "30,000 engineering man hours were spent redesigning the inside of this truck". Chevy I think. Hmmm. A "man year" is 2,000 man hours, so this means they had 15 guys working on it, for a year ( or 7 guys for two years, if this was for a standard two-year update to the vehicle). Not an impressive effort. No wonder American automakers are losing market share to the Japanese, even in the last remaining category of full size trucks. They've had forty years to figure out what the Japanese were doing with their (1) small cars, (2) medium size cars, (3) large cars, (4) small trucks, (5) medium sized trucks; and counter it, and haven't. Even the commercials are worse.

I've run out of cat food. Fortunately there was a sample bag of it, that came from somewhere, in the cupboard. They seem to like it - tomorrow I'll get more of the usual stuff. So far no vomiting, but different food can be a dicey thing for pets. Riley keeps coming back for more - he is laying on my optical mouse as I type this, an attention getting habit of his.

Another annoying habit is his pretending to be hungry. He'd run over to his food bowl and look at me. I'd fill it - and if I left the room he'd stop eating. I have finally realized that it means he wants some attention, and this is his signal. So now, if I know he's eaten recently, I pick him up, rub his tummy, and generally give some feedback. After which he usually is hungry, and does want food.

Just call me "the Cat Whisperer".

It was rather cold last night. I actually heard some 'bangs' in the early morning, possibly the neighbors' pipes breaking. Mine seem OK, and I heard him working in his side yard later in the day. Here's is a bit of the NOAA summary for Saturday morning - three degrees Fahrenheit. Now that's cold!

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: Dinner table set, this Christmas.

Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week